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RED BANK 



Paper read before the Monmouth County, N. J., Historical Association 
July 26, igoo, wherein is given a true account of the gallant 



DEFENCE OF FORT MERCER 



By Colonel Christopher Greene and his Band of 400 Patriots, against 
an assault of 2000 Hessians, under Count Donop, on October 22, 



1777 

By Alfred M. Heston, of Atlantic City, member of 
the New Jersey Historical Society 



With a 

Portrait of Colonel Greene, never before published, a view of the old 

Whitall House at Red Bank, and a photograph 

of the Monument 



PRINTED BY REQUEST. 



Water Witch Clnb House, where the Monmouth County His- 
torical Association met on July 26, 1900, is situated almost at the 
summit of the famous Highlands of Navesink, overlooking Sandy 
Hook Bay, Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. 
Water Witch Park derives its name from James Fennimore Cooper's 
novel, "Water Witch," of which many of the scenes were laid in 
Sandy Hook Bay and upon the adjacent Navesink Highlands. 

The locality has most interesting reminiscences for the student 
of colonial and revolutionary history. The reader of Cooper's de- 
lightful romance — the most truly imaginative that came from his 
pen — will recall the strangely-named villa, "Lust in Rust," built by 
the smuggling Dutch Alderman Van Beverout upon one of these 
elevations, and the adventures of the "Water Witch," guided by the 
mysterious sea-green lady, which glided in and out of a secret inlet 
that existed near the Hook. Nothing now remains of the dwelling of 
the portly alderman and Lady Barberie, his lovely ward, excepting 
the cellar, filled with the debris of fallen walls. 

Around the club house, winding in and out among the trees, are 
pretty walks and drives, whose names are suggestive of the novel, such 
as Coquette Lane, Fennimore Terrace, Cupid Path, Witch's Lane, 
Gypsy Pass and Water Witch Drive. 

Standing on the veranda of the club house, looking toward the 
ocean, we see the site of the old inlet, through which the "Water 
Witch" used to enter Shrewsbury river. In front of the club house, 
on the eastern slope of the Highlands, is Seadrift Path, and on the 
right is "Seadrift," the summer cottage of E. S. Atwood, treasurer 
of Water Witch Club. 

Four or five hundred feet north of the "Lust in Rust" ruins is 
the site of the "Huddy Tree," (now fallen) where the patriot, Joshua 
Huddy, was cruelly hung by the Tories on April 12, 1782. 

The Water Witch Club is composed principally of New York 
gentlemen, who spend the summer months on the Highlands, each 
member occupying his own cottage, and all of the cottages convenient 
to the club house, where the members and their families gather daily 
for social converse and where the stranger is always most kindly 
taken in. 



DEFENCE OF FORT MERCER, 



ACROSS from Leagaie Island, where modern battleships 
gleam white in their might, and opposite the ramparts 
of old Fort Mifflin, is the site of another fort, whose 
story is one of our sacred Revolutionary annals, and whose 
glory we may well recall on this occasion. Your Committee 
on Historical Research has said that "the object of this So- 
ciety is not to make history, but to preserve it." To pre- 
serve the history of a county whose soil was so often wet 
with the blood of patriots is indeed praiseworthy, and per- 
haps this Society, with its love for patriotism, will be inter- 
ested in an account of a battle, fought on New Jersey soil, 
where patriotism impelled men to deeds of valor equal to any 
witnessed on your own glorious field of Monmouth. 

Along the eastern shore of the Delaware, among the 
trees and beneath the undergrowth, we can trace a rounded 
ridge, a tangle-hidden ditch and a few hillocks — all that is 
left of the old fort at Red Bank, where four hundred soldiers 
of the Rhode Island line held an unfinished earthworks 
against an assault from the rear by two thousand well-dis- 
ciplined and well-equipped Hessians, — ''trained men of well- 
knit sinews" — where a band of patriots met the odds of five 
to one, and drove them back in signal rout. 

A marble shaft, whose inscription is half obliterated, 
dedicated to the memory of Colonel Christopher Greene and 
his band of patriots, looms up gray in the woodland gap. 
The dedication of this shaft was signalized exactly fifty 
years after the battle, by a sham fight between the Pennsyl- 



vania troops, commanded by Colonel Bartle, representing the 
Hessians, and the New Jersey militia, commanded by Col- 
onel Armstrong, representing the Americans.* A short dis- 
tance from the monument stands an ancient farm house, built 
in 1748, according to a stone set in the eastern gable, and 
around it cluster stories of a dauntless Quaker dame, Ann 
Whitall, who is said to have sat at her spinning wheel while 
cannon balls crashed around and through the house. This 
incident, stated by Mickle, in his "Reminiscences of Old 
Gloucester," and repeated by Lossing, in his "Field Book of 
the Revolution," is of doubtful authenticity; howbeit, it is 
much more credible than the anecdote of Commodore Joshua 
Barney. One of the enemy's galleys, at the time of this bat- 
tle, had a brass eighteen-pounder, which told at every fire. 
Said the Commodore : "The Americans on board the gun- 
boats soon became so well acquainted with the sound of her 
explosion, that whenever she went off some one would cry 
out, 'galley shot,' at which all hands would lie down." It 
must be admitted that dodging a cannon ball is by no means 
an ordinary feat ! 

It was at or very near Red Bank — the precise spot being 
unknown — that Fort Nassau was erected by Captain Cor- 
nelius Jacobsen Mey, in 1623, and the first settlement in New 
Jersey thereby attempted. Sixty odd years later Red Bank 
was made the capital of the county of Gloucester, but the 
place derives no celebrity from the fact that it is the reputed 
site of an ancient Dutch fortress, or the location of a decayed 
capital. Its name has not been associated with any judicial 
antics, of which it might have been the scene in the seven- 
teenth century, but with one of the most brilliant battles of 

*The Pennsylvania troops, numbering about four hundred, landed 
from a steamer at the mouth of Woodbury creek, and marched up the 
road along the river bank, firing their field pieces as they proceeded. 
When they had passed the Whitall house, they were met by the Jersey 
troops, numbering about one hundred. The monument was at first 
placed on the edge of the river bluff, so as to be readily seen from the 
river. Subsequently it was set further back, near the ditch that sur- 
rounded the fort. 



our Revolutionary period. Historians may accord the hon- 
ors to Monmouth, Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown, but 
the meed of praise, in equal measure, belongs to Red Bank. 
Monmouth had her Molly Pitcher; Red Bank her Christo- 
pher Greene. The cry of Major Pitcairn to the seventy pa- 




Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island. 

From a photograph of an oil painting owned by Mr. Edward Aborn 
Greene, of Providence, R. I. Never before published. 



triots at Lexington, "Disperse, you rebels; throw down your 
arms and disperse," had a fitting answer in the reply of brave 

Greene, at Red Bank: ''King George be d d; we ask 

no quarter." 

In September, 1777, following the defeat of Washing- 
ton at Brandywine, and the massacre of Wayne's three hun- 
dred patriots at Paoli, the victorious army of Sir William 
Howe entered Philadelphia. About the same time Sir Rich- 
ard Howe entered the lower Delaware with his fleet, intend- 
ing to co-operate with the army of occupation in Philadel- 
phia. Captain Hammond, commanding the British frigate 
''Roebuck,"* of forty-four guns, represented to the com- 
mander-in-chief that if a sufficient force could be sent to re- 
duce the fortifications at Billingsport, three miles below Red 
Bank, he would take upon himself the task of opening a pas- 
sage through the chevaux-de-frise, with which the Ameri- 
cans had obstructed the channel between Billingsport and 
Red Bank. General Howe at once despatched two regi- 
ments from Chester, under Colonel Stirling, for that pur- 
pose. They crossed the Delaware a little below Billings- 
port, marched to the rear of the unfinished works and made 
a furious assault upon the garrison. The Americans were 
dismayed at this unexpected attack, and believing themselves 
unable to make a successful resistance, they spiked their 
guns, set fire to the barracks and fled. The British there- 
upon demolished the works on the river front, made a pas- 
sage seven feet wide through the stockades, sailed through 
with six light vessels and anchored in the Delaware below 
Red Bank.** 

Howe now^ determined to make a general sweep of all 



*The Roebuck, with another frigate of twenty-eight guns, several 
smaller armed vessels and a British transport, went ashore on the beach 
north of what is now Atlantic City about January i, 1780. 

**The stockades, or chevaux-de-frise, were made of poles from 
thirty to forty feet long driven into the mud. At the top of each pole 
was fastened a long, sharp piece of iron for the purpose of piercing 
the bottom of any vessel that might attempt to pass over the obstruc- 
tion. 



7 

the American works on the Delaware, and with that end in 
view he concentrated his entire army in the vicinity of Phila- 
delphia. At this time two Rhode Islands regiments, belong- 
ing to General Varnum's brigade, under Colonel Christo- 
pher Greene, garrisoned Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, with four 
hundred men. 

It was very important for the American cause that the 
Delaware should be defended against the invading fleet. On 
a low and marshy island, which has since become a part of 
the mainland of Pennsylvania, at the mouth of the Schuyl- 
kill, Fort Mifflin was thrown up for the purpose of covering 
with batteries the river obstructions. On the opposite New 
Jersey shore, as stated. Fort Mercer was built on a high 
bank, commanding the open stretch of the Delaware above 
and below. In the river between the two forts, under cover 
of their guns, ranges of strong frames were sunk as chevaux- 
de-frise, to rake the wooden bottoms of England's ships of 
war, and blockade the narrow channel. These efforts, great 
in their day, seem puerile in this age of floating fortresses 
and thirteen-inch rifles. 

Fort Mifflin was distant from Fort Mercer about one 
mile, and w^as garrisoned by about four hundred men of the 
Maryland line, in command of Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel 
Smith. The American fleet in the river, between Red Bank 
and Philadelphia, consisted chiefly of galleys commanded by 
Commander Hazel wood. ''^ The Americans determined to 
hold these posts to the last extremity. Captain Hammond, 
as we have seen, had forced a way through the lower chan- 
nel obstructions and come to within range of the guns at 
Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin. Then began one of the most 



*Esek Hopkins, under act of Congress of April 22, 177 S^ was made 
the first "commander" of the American Navy, holding the office until 
January, 1777, but the title of "commodore" was not used in the navy 
until many years later. The title of "commodore" by courtesy was 
extended to several officers during the War of 1812-15, but the first offi- 
cer to hold it as a direct commission appears to have been Commodore 
David Porter, at the time he commanded the expedition against the 
pirates of the West Indies, 1823-24. 



glorious stands ever made by patriots fighting for home and 
country in the last ditch. 

Count Carl Emil Kurt von Donop, a brave German offi- 
cer, was sent out from Philadelphia with four battalions of 
Hessian veterans, chosen from the powerful army of occu- 
pation. On Tuesday, October 21st, they crossed the Dela- 
ware at Cooper's ferry, now Camden, marched to Haddon- 
field, and thence by way of a place then known as Cattletown 
to the King's Highway above Woodbury and toward Red 
Bank. They had intended taking a more direct route, but 
the Americans had destroyed the bridge over Timber creek, 
and the Hessians were obliged to march four miles up the 
creek, to a shallow ford, at or near Clement's bridge. A 
portion of their route to Red Bank still goes by the name of 
''Hessian road," and a stream of water that crosses the road 
is known as ''Hessian run," where, no doubt, they rested and 
replenished their canteens. A white man named Bill Mc- 
Ilvaine, and a negro named "Dick," the latter owned by Col. 
Joseph Ellis, a Haddonfield patriot, volunteered to act as 
guides for the Hessians, when they left Haddonfield on the 
morning of October 22d. Another negro known at "Mitch," 
probably a contraction of Mitchell, at work near the Cooper's 
creek bridge, was pressed into service as a guide. Years after- 
wards this negro had "Old" prefixed to his name, and as 
"Old Mitch," he described the battle of Red Bank to the late 
Dr. Charles Clark, of Woodbury. Twenty-five years ago, 
Dr. Clark, then about seventy-five years old, narrated to me 
some of the particulars of this battle, as he had previously 
gathered them from "Old Mitch" and others who lived in 
those stirring times. To the honor of "Old Mitch" be it 
said, that beneath his black skin there was the blood of a pa- 
iriot, and though bully-ragged by the Red Coats, he stood 
by his friends and betrayed no secrets. Of the fate of Mcll- 
vaine and Dick, we shall learn presently. 

Colonel Greene, energetic, obedient and patriotic, had 
not been idle during those October days. Washington had 



written him, under date of October 9th, from his headquar- 
ter at Skippack, above Philadelphia, as follows: 

" I have directed General Varniim to send your regiment and that of 
Colonel Angell's to Red Bank, by a route which has been marked out to 
him. The command of that detachment will, of course, devolve on you, 
with which you will proceed with all expedition, and throw yourself 
into that place. When you arrive there you will immediately com- 
municate your arrival to Colonel Smith, commander of the garrison 
at Fort Mifflin, and Com. Hazlewood, commander of the fleet in the 
river. You are to co-operate with them in every measure neces- 
sary for the defence of the obstructions in the river, and to counteract 
every attempt the enemy may make for their removal. You will find 
a very good fortification at Red Bank, but if anything should be requi- 
site to render it stronger, or proportion it to the size of your garrison, 
you will have it done. The cannon you will stand in need of, as much 
as can be spared, will be furnished from the galleys at Fort Mifflin, 
from whence you will also derive supplies of military stores. I have 
sent Captain Duplessis, with some officers and men, to take the im- 
mediate direction of the artillery for your garrison. He is also to 
superintend any works that may be necessary. If there be any de- 
ficiency of men for the artillery the security of the garrison will re- 
quire you to assist them in the few additional ones from your detach- 
ment. You should not lose a moment's time in getting to the place 
of your destination and making every preparation for its defence. 
Any delay might give the enemy an opportunity of getting there be- 
fore you, which could not fail of being most fatal in its consequences. 
If in the progress of your march you should fall in with any detach- 
ment of the enemy, bending toward the same object, and likely to 
gain it before you, and from intelligence you should have reason to 
think yourself equal to the task, you will by all means attack them and 
endeavor by that means to disappoint their design. I have written to 
General Newcomb. of the Jersey militia, to give you all the aid in his 
power, for which you will accordingly apply when necessary. Upon the 
whole, sir, you will be pleased to remember that the post with which you 
are now entrusted is of the utmost importance to America, and de- 
mands every exertion of which you are capable for its security and 
defence. The whole defence of the Delaware absolutely depends upon 
it ; and consequently all the enemy's hopes of keeping Philadelphia and 
finally succeeding in the object of the present campaign. Influenced by 
these considerations, I doubt not your regard to the service and your 
own reputation will prompt you to every possible effort to accomplish 
the important end of your trust, and frustrate the intentions of the 
enemy." (Signed, Gko. Washington.) 

The fact that Colonel Greene was entrusted with the 
command of a post that was of "the utmost importance to 
America," and upon which the whole defence of the Dela- 
ware absolutely depended, in the estimation of Washington, 
is a tribute to the honor, the valor and the judgment of Col- 



lO 



onel Greene, no less appreciable than the gift of a sword by 
C^ongress. 







Plan of Fort Mercer. 

From a drawing made in 1842 by T. S. Saunders, of Woodbury. 
REFERENCES. 
A — Road the Hessians used in marching to the attack. 
B — End of the Fort at which the Hessians entered. 
C — Monument erected in 1829. 

D— Ditch, cross embankment and location of masked battery. 
F — Hickory tree used during the battle as a flag staff. 
F— Ruins of the brick wall in the middle of the artificial bank— also 

gateway. 
G — Trenches in which the slain were deposited. 
H — Count Donop's grave. 
I— Whitall house. 

J — Road to Woodbury, now called "Hessian Road." 
K— Direction to Fort Mififlin. 
The works represented extend about 350 yards in a right line. 



II 

Not having men to properly man the fort, Colonel 
Greene proposed to abandon about two-thirds, or the upper 
end of it; put a d()ul)le 1)oard fence across the lower third; 
protect it with wooden pickets and the sharpened branches 
of trees; place the cannon in such a position as to rake the 
upper part of the fort ; cover them with 1)ushes ; fill the space 
between the two fences with hay, old lumber and such other 
obstructions as were at hand. The cannon were heavily 
k>aded with grai:)e shot and other destructive missiles. It 
was arranged that only a show of defence should be made at 
the upper end of the fort, which was to be abandoned as 
soon as the attack was found to be in earnest, and a retreat 
made to the small enclosure or main fort below. This was 
to be defended to the last extremity. 

Historians, in their brief reference to the battle of Red 
Bank, have usually fixed the time of the assault at before 
noon. Even the late Judge Clement, of Haddonfield, known 
to some of you as a faithful annalist and painstaking his- 
torian, falls into this error. Some accounts say it took place 
earlv in the day, others are silent as to the time of day, and 
in 1:)ut one or two instances, so far as I am aware, has it been 
said that the assault took place late in the afternoon. 

The diary of Job Whitall, a Quaker and non-combatant, 
is interesting in this connection. Friend Whitall lived in a 
large brick house, fronting the river and just below the fort. 
He was the husband of Ann Whitall, already mentioned, and 
kept a diary of daily incidents for twenty years, from 1775 to 
1795. Under date of Tenth month, 22d, 1777, the day of 
the battle, he says : 

" This day dawned pleasant and fair. Father and I hung the gate 
and then finished the stacks. Then we got the horses and wagon, and 
loaded our goods to move them, as we hear the English troops in 
the river are coming nearer." Under the same date Friend Whitall says 
that " myself, wife and children, after eating dinner, went off to Uncle 
David Cooper's, near Woodbury." He also tells us that Cooper sent his 
wagon to aid in moving the goods. They drove away twenty-one head 
of his cattle. "The people in the Fort," says he, regretfully, "drove 
away from father and I forty-seven sheep into the Fort." 



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13 

The fact that the Hessians had not arrived at noon, and 
that "after eating dinner," Dame Whitall and her children 
were taken to Uncle David Cooper's, near Woodbury, proves 
that there was no battle until afternoon, and apparently dis- 
proves the story about the good dame sitting at her spinning- 
wheel, first upstairs, and then in the cellar, while cannon 
balls were crashing through the walls of the house. 

It must have b-een on account of information that the 
Hessians w^ere coming, or because the men in the fort had 
aroused the ire of the peaceful Quaker by driving into their 
enclosure forty-seven of his sheep, that Job Whitall, some 
lime after dinner on the day of the battle, decided to remove 
his wife and children to Woodbury, and to save his twenty- 
one head of cattle. 

But if Friend Whitall resented the taking of his forty- 
seven head of sheep by the men in the fort, what must have 
been his subsequent feelings toward the garrison? On the 
25th, three days after the battle, he says : 

" The soldiers pressed my mare, by order of Col. Greene." The 
next day, after noting the fact that he had hauled away the wheat 
and grain, he adds : "Then I filled four rooms with goods — locked 
up," and under date of the day following we read that "these . rooms 
the soldiers broke open and took away some potatoes." Five days later, 
on November ist, the soldiers took away his mare and four loads of 
rye, but he tells us that he himself "got off with some of his horses," 
and his neighbors assisted in removing his hay, produce, &c. On No- 
vember 4th he notes : "The soldiers pressed my oxen as we were in the 
act of hauling away, and the soldiers went to Uncle David Cooper's and 
there pressed the sorrel horse." On the pth the "soldiers steal some 
of the pigs at Woodbury," while the family is at meeting. The next 
day he goes to "the Bank," meaning Red Bank, and gets a load out of 
his cellar. On the 15th he killed his fat cow, and in the night the sol- 
diers came and pillaged a part of it. 

On the 2ist, while still living at Woodbury, he staid at home, 
because the English soldiers had then arrived there. They took his two 
mares, both with foal, and while the army was passing by, they came 
and took their bread, pies, milk, cheese, dishes, cups, spoons ; also their 
shirts, sheets, blankets, &c., and then drove out the cattle from the brick 
shed. 

These few extracts from the diary are sufficient to show 
the perturbed state of Friend Whitall's mind about the time 
of the battle at Red Bank. Manduit, the French engineer, 



14 

who assisted Colonel Greene, could not comprehend the peace 
doctrines of the Quakers, and because Friend Whitall would 
not doff his straight coat, shoulder a musket and go into the 
fort, the Frenchman concluded that he was a Tory, and or- 
dered his barn torn down and his orchard destroyed. 

But continuing our account of the battle, I assume that 
the little garrison was not expecting a formidable land at- 
tack, and their sentry lines did not extend far beyond the 
fortification. They must be in readiness for any movement 
made by that fleet of war vessels in the river, whose spars 
could be seen above the ramparts of the fort. Late in the 
afternoon, the Hessians appeared before the fort. The Brit- 
ish naval force in the river was ready to co-operate with 
iliem in the attack. 

Colonel Greene was not dismayed by the appearance of 
the Hessians, although the farthest sentry had dashed into 
the fort and said they numbered twenty-five hundred. He 
immediately ordered preparations for the defence. The four- 
teen guns were double-shotted and reprimed. Within there 
was the roll of drums calling to quarters, the rattle of snap- 
ping flints, the hurrying footfalls of men forming a line 
along the parapets, the shouting of orders, the clash of steel 
and the tattoo of ramrods. Without there was the roll of 
Hessian drums. Then came a time of silence, when the men, 
we may suppose, said their prayers and examined their flints. 

The last preparations were made within, when a Hes- 
sian officer rode out from the woods, across the open field, 
bearing a flag of truce and followed by a drummer. He 
halted close to the ramparts and shouted : 

"The king of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down 
their arms, and they are warned that if they stand the battle no quar- 
ter will be given." 

Colonel Greene deputized a man to mount the parapet and fling 
back the answer : "We ask no quarter, nor will we give any." 

One trustworthy account says the exact words were : 

''We'll see King George be damned first; we ask no quarter." 

The Hessian officer rode back to lines and the attack be- 



15 

gan immediately. A field battery was dragged up and placed 
''half a shot away," says an old chronicler, "and within the 
fort all were eager and busy." It was then four o'clock in 
the afternoon. The Hessians opened fire with their battery, 
hoping to make a breach in the walls. At the same time the 
British ships l^elow the chevaux-de-frize began to thunder 
upon the little fort, but many of their balls fell too low and 
entered the 1)luff beneath the works. After cannonading 
for a short time the Hessians advanced to the first entrench- 
ment. Finding this abandoned, they shouted "Victory," 
waved their hats and rushed into the deserted area before 
the redoubt. When the first of the assailants had come up 
to the abatis and were endeavoring to cut away the branches, 
the Americans opened a terrific fire of cannon and musketry 
in front and flank. Death rode in every volley. So near 
w^ere the Hessians to the caponiere or looped trench which 
flanked the enemy when they set upon the main fort, that the 
wads were blown entirely through their bodies. The officers 
leading the attack fought l^ravely. Again and again they 
rallied their men and brought them to the charge, but they 
fell in heaps among the boughs of the abatis and into the 
moat. In the thickest of the fight Donop was easily distin- 
guished, but his example availed nothing. Repulsed from 
the redoubt in front, his men made an attack upon the escarp- 
ment on the northwest or river side, but the fire from the 
American galleys drove them back with great loss, and at last 
they flew^ in great disorder to the woods, leaving many 
slain.* 



*"While the enemy was attacking the fort, the Augusta, of sixty- 
four guns ; the Roebuck, of forty-four ; two frigates, of thirty-two ; the 
Merlin, of eighteen, and their large galleys came through the lower 
chcvaux-de-frise, and kept up a great firing, in order to draw off our 
galleys from giving any assistance to the fort ; but they were mis- 
taken. The Augusta, in going down in the evening, got aground. 
Early this morning (October 23d) all the galleys and floating bat- 
teries began the attack, when an incessant fire was kept up on both 
sides ; so that the very elements seemed to be on fire. At eleven o'clock 
the Augusta was set on fire, and at twelve she blew up with an aston- 
ishing blast. One of our people was killed in a galley by the fall of a 



i6 

Another column made a simultaneous attack upon the 
south, but were repulsed, and all retreated save twenty, who 
were standing on the berm against the shelvings of the para- 
pet, under and out of the wa}^ of the guns, whence they were 
afraid to move. These were captured by Manduit, the 
French engineer,''' wdio had sallied from the fort to repair 
some palisades. This brave Frenchman, making another 
sortie a few minutes afterwards, to repair the southern abatis, 
heard a voice from among the heaps of dead and dying ex- 
claim in broken English : "Whoever you are, draw me 
hence." This was Count Donop. The Frenchman caused 
him to be carried into the fort, where it was found that his 
hip^ was broken, but the wound was not considered fatal. 
Remembering the threat of the Hessian officer, who was per- 
mitted to approach the fort before the battle, an American 
said, in the hearing of Donop : 

" It is determined to give no quarter." " I am in your hands," 
said the Count, "you may revenge yourselves." Nevertheless, the 
wounded Hessian was properly cared for. Manduit, enjoining the 
men in broken English to be generous toward their bleeding and hum- 
bled prisoner. Donop said to him, "You appear to be a foreigner, sir ; 
who are you?" "A French officer, sir," was the reply. "I am content," 
said Donop ; "I die in the hands of honor itself." 

Donop was removed first to the Whitall house, below the fort, 
and afterwards to the house of one Lowe, over the dam, at Wood- 
bury creek, where he died of his wounds three days later. When 
told that his end was near, he said : "It is finishing a noble career early, 
but I die the victim of ambition and the avarice of my sovereign." 
To Colonel Clymer he said: "See in me the vanity of all human 
pride. I have shone in all the courts of Europe, and now I am dying 
on the banks of the Delaware, in the house of an obscure Quaker." 

The house in which Donop died was standing until about i860. 
It was of brick with the old style hip roof. 



piece of timber, and we were so near that some of our powder-horns 
took fire and blew up. The engagement still continued ; but the Roe- 
buck fell lower down, and the Merlin, of eighteen guns, ran aground, 
and at three o'clock the enemy set fire to her, when the engagement 
ceased, the enemy falling still lower down. Thus ended two glorious 
days. The Commodore (Hazel wood) with his boats went on board 
the wrecks and took out much plunder, and brought off two of their 
cannon, one an eighteen, the other a twenty-four pounder." — From a 
"Diary of the Revolution," October 23, 1777. 

*His full name was M. du Plessis Manduit. 




Plan of Operations of the 

Reproduced from a Tory pi 




Ltisli and Rebel Army." 
of Revolutionary days. 



I? 

Weems, in his life of Washington, refers to this inci- 
dent. The legs of prose being altogether too slow for this 
eccentric writer, he frequently invokes the wings of poetry 
to help him over an extraordinary occurrence. In describing 
the battle of Red Bank, he breaks into versification as fol- 
lows : 

" Heaps on heaps, the slaughtered Hessians lie ; 
Brave Greene beholds them with a tearful eye; 
Far now from home and from their native shore, 
They sleep in death and hear of war no more." 

Dr. George W. Greene, in his book on the ''German Ele- 
ment in the War of Independence," referring to these dying 
words of Donop, "the victim of my own ambition and the 
avarice of my sovereign," says : "Did these bitter w^ords 
ever reach the ears of that sovereign? Not if we may judge 
by the cold, business-like method with which he bargained 
with the British King that three wounded men should count 
as one killed, and one killed as thirty crowns banco." 

The defeat of the Hessians and the death, not only of 
Donop, but of Mingerode, the officer second in command, 
demoralized them, and they retreated towards Cooper's Ferry 
in detached bodies, begging food and shelter of those whom 
they had so badly treated. The transportation of the wound- 
ed caused much trouble, and as one detachment approached 
Haddonfield a farmer living near the road was, with his horse 
and cart, pressed into service to carry those who were unable 
to walk further. The appearance of armed men so terrified 
the farmer, that he neglected to fasten down the front of his 
cart, and in ascending a hill near the village the weight of the 
men was thrown on the rear of the cart. Consequently all 
were pitched headlong into the road, at which there was 
much swearing in Dutch by the soldiers and prostestations in 
English by the farmer ; but after many threats the vehicle 
was properly secured and the journey to Cooper's Ferry was 
completed. 

Other detachments of Hessians retreated by way of 
Blackwood or Chew's Landing. Near the latter place they 



were met by a company of farmers' boys, who held them at 
bay for some time. This detachment had with them a brass 
cannon, which they are said to have thrown into the creek 
near Chew's Landing. 

Bin Mcllvaine and the negro Dick, to whom I have re- 
ferred as guides for the Hessians, being taken prisoners by 
the Americans, were immediately hung within the fort for 
divers outrages which they had committed. "Old Mitch" 
lived for many years, and often told how frightened he was 
during the progress of the battle. Determined not to bear 
arms against his country, and being afraid to run away, he 
got behind a hay rick, and lay there flat on his stomach until 
the battle was over. "Fust, when de cannon ball cum 
along," he used to say, "I b'lieved I was a dead nigger sure; 
but lordy massa, when de hot fightin' was a-goin' on, I was 
mos' shuk dead as de dam cannon balls cum a-plowin' along 
de groun' an' a-flingin' san' in my face." 

Dr. Charles Clark, of Woodbury, to whom I have 
already referred, said in 1875, that many years before he had 
talked with "Old Mitch," and the words of the old negro, as 
I have given them, are exactly as Dr. Clark recalled them. 

In the manuscript notes of a septuagenarian, quoted by 
Mickle, in 1845, ^^'^ ^^'^ told that he, the septuagenarian, was 
in the fort on the morning of the 23d of October, the day 
after the battle, when he saw that a number of the men under 
Colonel Greene were blacks and mulattoes. The garrison 
was then busy burying the dead. His account of the loss 
agrees with that contained in Ward's letter to Washington, 
namely : On the American side, from Greene's regiment, 
two sergeants, one fifer and four privates killed, one sergeant 
and two privates wounded, and one captain, who was recon- 
noitering, taken prisoner. From Angell's regiment, one cap- 
tain, three sergeants, three rank and file killed, and one en- 
sign, one sergeant and fifteen privates wounded ; and from 
Captain Duplessis' company, two privates wounded. The 
Hessians lost Count Donop, Colonel Minegerode, three cap- 



19 



tains, four lieutenants and above seventy privates killed, and 
a brigade major, captain, lieutenant and upwards of seventy 
non-commissioned officers and privates wounded and prison- 
ers. A number of the wounded subsequently died. Other 
accounts make the Hessian loss much greater.'^ 



*A letter to the Neiv Jersey Gazette, dated October 23, 1777, giv- 
ing an account of the battle, says : "In about three-quarters of an 
hour's attack they ran off with the greatest precipitation, leaving be- 
hind them dead about ninety persons. Among them was a lieutenant 
colonel and four captains; and from a good authority we are assured 
that the enemy buried one colonel and twenty-one privates between 
the fort and Cooper's ferry, and carried over the river not less than 
two hundred wounded. The enemy left on the field, wounded, Count 
Donop, his brigade-major, a lieutenant and about eighty privates. 
The brigade-major and lieutenant are permitted to go into Philadelphia, 
and most of the privates have died of their wounds." 

The following is probably a correct summary of the loss on both 
sides : 





Hessians. 


Americans. 






Wounded. 


en 
u 

OJ 

C 


'u 


Killed. 


-d 




t/3 


Count Donop 

Colonel Minegerade 


I 
I 








I 
I 

I 
I 










Brigade-Major 










Captains 


3 
4 





I 




I 


Lieutenants 




Ensign 






I 
2 




Sergeants 








5 
I 

7 




Musicians 


I 

77 


"97' 

lOI 




20 




Privates . .... ... 


19 










87 


20 


14 


22 


I 



A number of the wounded subsequently died. Including these, 
the Hessian killed numbered not less than one hundred and fifty. The 
Hessians are also said to have taken over the Delaware "not less than 
two hundred wounded." 

Dr. James Thacher, a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, in his 
journal says: "Count Donop was mortally wounded and taken, and 
more than one hundred were killed on the spot, and a greater number 
wounded and prisoners. The enemy retreated with great precipitation, 
leaving many of their wounded on the road, and returned to Philadel- 
phia with the loss of one-half their party." 



20 

The battle lasted forty minutes, and during its progress 
a number of Americans were killed or wounded by the burst- 
ing of a cannon. The Hessian slain were buried in the moat 
south of the fort. Those who were not mortally wounded 
were taken to Philadelphia by Manduit and exchanged. 

Donop was buried in the pathway half way between the 
old Whitall house and the lower end of the fort, the feet to- 
wards the river. Some one placed a rough stone at his head, 
on which were picked in a very crude way the letters, ''Here 
lies buried Count Donop." Years afterward what was left 
of the Hessian was dug up and distributed among various per- 
sons as ghastly relics. Time was when men were guilty of 
exhibiting canes, the heads of which were set with teeth taken 
from the jaw bone of a count! Annalist John F. Watson, 
of Philadelphia, said he visited Red Bank in 1847, ^'^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ 
house of Louis Whitall, grandson of Friend Job Whitall, he 
saw the skull of Count Donop. 

While the Hessians were assaulting Fort Mercer, the 
British fleet in the river, besides firing in the direction of Red 
Bank, made an attack upon Fort Mifflin, across the river. Of 
the glorious defence of this fort for six days, against over- 
whelming odds, I need not speak. After Fort Mifflin had 
been evacuated, (the remnant of the garrison escaping to 
Red Bank by night) Howe sent Cornwallis with reinforce- 
ments from New York to fall upon Fort Mercer. W^ith two 
thousand men the latter crossed the Delaware from Chester 
to Billingsport on November i8th. Washington had been 
apprised of this movement and had previously sent troops 
under General Nathaniel Greene to relieve the doughty gar- 
rison at Red Bank. This force was to be increased by the 
addition of Glover's brigade, but Generals Greene and Lafay- 
ette, (the latter not yet recovered from a wound received at 
Brandy wine, ) crossing to New Jersey, failed to connect with 
Glover's brigade, and learning the strength of Cornwallis' 
army, General Greene went off to Haddonfield. Colonel 
Greene was ordered to evacuate Fort Mercer, as the British 



21 

fleet, after the reduction of Fort Mifflin, had gone by and up 
to Philadelphia. Colonel Greene accordingly blew up and 
evacuated the fort on November 20th. 

The day following Greene's evacuation of the fort, 
Cornwallis arrived at Woodbury, and then began another 
series of depredations upon Friend Whitall's barn yard and 
pig sty, the story of which is plaintively told in the diary 
from which I have already quoted ; nor was dame Whitall's 
larder overlooked by the hungry Red Coats, who carried off 
her bread, pies, cakes, milk, cheese, dishes, cups, spoons, &c., 
likewise her shirts, sheets and blankets. On November 22d, 
says the diarist, the soldiers took away one of his pigs and 
cut and hacked others. They also took his harness and pota- 
toes. The next day they took his hay and ten of his sheep, 
and the day following, November 24th, "the English soldiers 
moved off in the morning from Woodl3ury," going to Red 
Bank. After they had gone Friend Whitall walked to the 
camp ground, and found there his big kettle and the hide of 
his brown ox. On his return from Woodbury, he found 
that the}^ had opened his smoke house and taken five flitches. 
They had also used of his boards a thousand feet and burned 
two or three thousand of his staves. 

Deprived of his cattle, his horses, his oxen, his sheep, 
his pigs, his stores, his sheets and his shirts, what wonder is 
it that Friend Job Whitall deprecated the horrors of war! 
Surely, his was a horrible tale, the telling of which might 
make his neighbors' faces all turn pale ! We can imagine 
Job the Quaker, saying with Paul the Apostle, ''O, wretched 
man that I am; who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?" 

As a recognition of his valorous defence of Fort Mercer, 
Congress directed that a sword be presented to Colonel 
Greene, but this sword it was not his privilege to receive. It 
w^as given to his son after the close of the war, the Colonel 
himself being then dead. While stationed with his regiment 
near Croton river. New York, he was surprised about sun- 



22 

rise, on May 13, 1 781, by a company of Tories, consisting of 
al)out one hundred cavalry and two hundred infantry, com- 
manded by the notorious Colonel James Delancey. They 
first attacked Colonel Greene's and Major Flagg's quarters, 
and killed the Major while in bed. Colonel Greene fell after 
his single arm had slain a number of his assailants. Being 
badly wounded in the house, he was carried into the woods 
and barbarously murdered. Two subalterns and twenty- 
seven privates were also killed, and a lieutenant and surgeon, 
with about twenty men, taken prisoners. 

At the same time. Captain Knapp, of the cavalry, with a 
detachment of Tories, attacked the house of Widow Grifhn, 
half a mile distant from Colonel Greene's camp, where they 
killed eight men and took twenty-one prisoners. 

In referring to this cruel assault, in his ''Military Jour- 
nal of the Revolution," Dr. James Thacher says : '' It will 
not be denied that an enemy may be justified in availing 
himself of every opportunity of gaining an advantage over 
his antagonist, or that in some instances slaughter is una- 
voidable ; but a wanton and unnecessary sacrifice of life is on 
all occasions to be deprecated as a disgraceful violation of 
the dictates of humanity." 

In conclusion, recurrring to Red Bank, I cannot refrain 
from expressing before this patriotic society what must be 
the sentiment of every native or adopted son and daughter 
of New Jersey, namely : That the neglected condition of the 
monument erected to commemorate the bravery of Colonel 
Greene and his band of patriots is discreditable to the Gov- 
ernment upon wdiose grounds it is located, and to the county 
within whose bounds it is situated. For years it has been 
the prey of vandals, and its once-polished sides are now 
scratched and marred by the pencil and pick of the plebe. 
In 1872, the Government purchased a tract of about one hun- 
dred acres along the Delaware, at Red Bank, including the 
site of the fortifications and the old Whitall house, whose 
floors are still stained w^ith the blood of wounded Hessians 



23 

and patriots, and while the house, now tenanted by Captain 
Stephen Abdih and his obhging wife, has undergone a thor- 
ough renovation, (the woodwork shining with new paint 
and the rooms resplendent with new furniture,) the monu- 
ment is ignored, neglected and forgotten. 

Three or four hundred feet from the road, near the cen- 
tre of a field at Valley Forge, is the grave of Captain John 
Waterman, a Rhode Island soldier, who died during that 
memorable winter of 1777-78. For many years the owner 
of the land, Mr. I. Heston Todd, has preserved and guarded 
this grave, and over it, ere long, there will be placed a suita- 
ble monument, the State of Rhode Island having appro- 
priated $10,000 for that purpose. Over the same grave the 
Daughters of the Revolution are also determined to place a 
fitting monument. Will it become the privilege of the same 
little commonwealth of Rhode Island to put to shame the 
Federal Government by restoring the monument at Red 
Bank, and protecting it from depredations by the vulgar 
herd ? Alas, that there are no sons and daughters of Revolu- 
tionary sires in old Gloucester county, with pride and patriot- 
ism sufficient to preserve a monument erected within her pre- 
cincts, to commemorate the gallant stand of that noble four 
hundred ! 



24 




The Monument— Mutilated and Neglected. 

Photographed by Helen L. Heston. 



Inscription on Nortli Side — This monument was erected on the 
22d Octo., 1829, to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of 
the Patriotism and Gallantry of Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Greene, 
who, with 400 men, conquered the Hessian army of 2,000 troops (then 
in the British service) at Red Bank, on the 22d Octo., 1777. Among 
the slain was found the commander, Count Donop, whose body lies 
interred near the spot where he fell. 

Inscription on Bast Side — A number of the New Jersey and Penn- 
sylvania volunteers, being desirous to perpetuate the memory of the dis- 
tinguished officer and soldiers who fought and bled in the glorious 
struggle for Independence, have erected this monument on the 22d of 
October, A. D. 1829. 



^» 



JAM 17 tm 



